Weakening For Strength
by NessieGG
Summary: Life and love can make them conquerors or casualties. [Naruto Drabbles] [SasuSaku, NaruSaku, NejiTen, NaruHina, KibaIno, ShikaTem]
1. NaruSaku: Perhaps A Dancer

**Author's Notes**: A late, short birthday present for my friend Loyce, who has helped me realize that NaruSaku is possible, isn't it? Happy birthday, dear!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto and am not making any profit from this fan fiction.

**Perhaps A Dancer**

By Nessie

Haruno Sakura could have been a dancer. She moved with unconscious grace about the sterile room, adjusting, straightening, rosy hands fluttering over pristine white sheets and back to her clipboard or maybe to some wayward strands of light pink that needed to be brushed behind her ear.

Yes, a dancer. She certainly had the legs for it; long, quick, sturdy. The hands, maybe not, since they were often more destructive than they were gentle. Not that they _couldn't_ be gentle, it simply wasn't her preference.

Blond lashes parted like curtains to reveal crystalline blue eyes. The mouth, which had been bleeding only hours ago, quirked at the sight of her.

"Jeez, Sakura-chan. If you wanted to get me in bed, I can think of a hundred better ways."

The two green gems went from surprised at his wakening to stern at his joke, though her lips twitched suspiciously – delectably. "Go back to sleep, Naruto." The prospect of touching her smooth skin was enough to motivate him to turn his hand over to grasp the one she had set upon the wrist not hooked up to an IV.

While a dozen dirty comebacks filtered through his pain med-hazed brain, Naruto obeyed because, frankly, his mouth was still sore and behaving increased his chances for a feel better kiss.

Maybe he would dream up a way to get _her _into bed later.

Of course, Naruto thought as he drifted off, the dancing he had in mind was not at all appropriate for public viewing. And honestly, he had no interest in letting anyone see.

He cherished their moments.

**The End**


	2. NejiTen: Tenable

**Author's Note: **NejiTen, set at a time when they're older, say, earlier 20's.

**Tenable**

By Nessie

"Fight me."

This is how she is.

"I've been working with chain lately."

The most unpredictable woman.

"My theory is that they're thin enough to pass through your Kaiten, with the right concentration of chakra."

At sunrise, she can be lethal or lover, depending on her mood. She loves what she does.

"But they might be too light to resist the force of your chakra wall."

It's almost hard to believe they were leaving her bed only two hours ago.

"Well, we'll see, won't we?"

Or that she made love to him so gently it would seem she had never touched weapon. They are completely different people during training.

"Ready, Neji?"

He begins the rapid whirl, gravity defied all around him as the pull of his chakra lifts dirt and blades of grass from the ground. It is just Neji and the air, the intoxicating stream of power, and he drinks it in, feeling untouchable, feeling _perfect_...

Until an length of linked iron slices knife-like through the silver-blue vortex and coils around one outstretched arm. An opposite pull so strongly executed cleanly breaks his flow, and the chakra ebbs, revealing Tenten at the chain's other end.

"Not so invincible now, are you?"

He hadn't been invincible for months, when he'd let fall that final barrier between them and let her love him. At last.

Smirking, he gives the chain a tug with his free hand until her supple body careens into his, and the sensation of power surges once more. It wasn't like he had become weak, after all.

"Absolutely defenseless," the Hyuuga acknowledges before crashing his lips down to hers. Beneath him, her mouth parts in open invitation.

This is how she is.

Neji loves her for it.


	3. SasuSaku: The Only Eyes

**Author's Notes**: Set in part two of the Naruto manga. Spoiler alert!

**The Only Eyes**

By Nessie

There is always hissing in his ear just before Sasuke fall asleep; not that he really sleeps. Even if the members of Hebi are loyal to him now, there's no telling when or whose loyalty will shift (he is always somewhat wary of Karin for other reasons). It isn't, also, that he believes Orochimaru is nearby.

It's his own psyche anchoring him. Too much dreaming throws him off, unbalances him, because any vision of battles experienced or training endured can give way to green eyes, staring, unwavering and solemn from a far-below ravine.

The only eyes Sasuke wants to focus on are sunken, red and black, passive. Eyes he hates. Eyes he intends to watch as they close for the final time.

She bothers him more and more as of late. It is interesting, in a way; he finds her annoying even when she isn't there. She smiles at him because of him, and he knows that perception of her is skewed. She showed no sign of crying at their impromptu reunion in the Land of Grass, and she definitely did not smile at him.

But he thought he had seen...in eyes that were older, maybe, but still the same—

Sasuke started, wide awake. It was a reflex, he thought, adrenaline coursing in him. The brain's reaction to his dozing, misinterpreting it as his body dying.

Sakura.

Sunrise would come in an hour, and Hebi would then be on the move again. He had no time for errant dreams.

Not even of green eyes, whether or not they were the only eyes worth dreaming of.

**The End**


	4. ShikaTem: Watching Paint Dry

**Author's Notes: **Set in the future. WARNING: mature content.

**Watching Paint Dry**

By Nessie

"Aren't you bored?

She turned her blond head to show him a wry smile. "You're only asking that because _you_ are."

Nara Shikamaru regarded her with the facial expression of one who is forced to suffer slowly. "And you're sure there has to be two coats?"

"Yes." Temari folded her arms and crossed the sheet-draped room to him. The walls she had attacked using a paintbrush instead of a fan had been transformed from dull white to a soft, warm gold color. "I told you I wanted to repaint. If you didn't want to spend so much time on it, maybe you shouldn't have picked out such a huge house."

Her husband only mumbled something that sounded like "far away from my mother" before mimicking her stance – arms crossed, legs set apart – and staring her down, though with considerably less heat. "I could bring the Shogi board in here."

"You would win...no."

Shikamaru's sigh came heavily. "Temari, we are _watching paint dry_."

"What's really amazing," said the woman who hailed from Sand, "is that the whole time you've been complaining, I've been washing paint off myself, and you haven't given a single sign of noticing."

Shikamaru stopped, took in the cloth in her hand; how it dripped warm water down her cheek, neck, below the collar of her shirt. Silently, his mouth formed an insightful O.

"Idiot," Temari remarked even as Shikamaru covered the short distance between them and plucked the cloth from her hand.

"You've got paint all over you." There was no more than a note of eagerness in his tone, but Shikamaru certainly did not sound bored.

Temari's grin resurfaced. "Exactly."


	5. NejiTen: A Matter of Deserving

**Author's Notes: **Some NejiTen angst. This is a companion piece to Nami's artwork, "After Her Mission." You can see it here: nami86. /art /after-her-mission- 94822498 (just paste into browser and take out the spaces.)

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto and am making no profit from this fan fiction.

**A Matter of Deserving**

By Nessie

Blood cakes her hair, clumping her mussed buns and releasing the sharp scent of death into the air around her. That is worse to Tenten than the numerous cuts and bruises decorating her arms, neck, and cheeks. They sting, but the pain is faint, and they won't leave scars. Her heart is more seriously wounded by far.

She is briefly tempted to stop attending to her injuries, to put the bandages and salve down and let the marks remain. Her blood would stain the sheets in the Hyuuga guest room she soundlessly entered an hour ago. Her jaw pulses from clenching it all night so that the agony she wants to scream out – not the physical but the lashing, biting inner hurt – will stay locked deep inside, and the Hyuuga clan will go on sleeping peacefully.

The hall door opens, as part of her had expected, and a tall figure dressed for bed stands before her for the first time in a month. Time on a pillow has disturbed his sleek fall of dark hair, and the silver in his eyes glimmers strongly enough to rival that of the full moon outside, her only light to work by. Lighting lamps had seemed foolish. Light is for those who deserve it.

"Tenten..." Neji's whispers disperses somewhere in the space between them. Usually, she would reach for him. Usually, it would be their room she takes care of herself in. His breathing in the dark is always more soothing than any ointment.

She does not deserve that either.

Tenten's hands stay at the front of her shirt. The thin camisole, worn beneath her protective Jounin vest, was torn in the back by an enemy's jutsu she barely managed to dodge. And in her dodging it, she opened her charge to the attack; a young girl, no older than eight, who was on her way to meet her father in the Land of Earth. But the mission had been miscalculated, falsely planned, and Tenten had failed. Her eyes still carried the miserable images of small arms stretching out to her before...before they had...

She was left in the dirt, their jeers still ringing in her ears, and by the time she had walked through the gates into Konoha, it was too late to make a report. There was only home, the massive compound appearing ghostly beneath the moon.

Neji could ask about all of this, Tenten thinks as he approaches and sits gingerly beside her. He could ask, she would voice all of it, go through every gruesome detail of the battle that made her feel helpless, like a murderer in a different way. How they had let her live just for the humiliation of it. But Neji does not ask.

He takes the roll of bandages from her and places two short strips in a cross just beneath her shoulder to cover a gaping wound, followed by the warm press of his lips. Next he wraps her right wrist. She digs her fingers into the fabric of her camisole. She expects the questions he's holding back.

"I love you," he says softly, watching her profile in the moonlight. Tenten's eyes close, tears escaping from beneath her lashes. Her face angles toward his, but she won't sink against him. Not yet. A few more moments of painful tribute to the ruined mission, and then she will let him heal her as only Neji can.

She forgets, sometimes, that he is the one person in this world who dark rooms and quiet crying will not hide her from. It is not a matter of deserving.

**The End**


End file.
